


Get There

by gillywulf



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Post Yamatai, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3604524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillywulf/pseuds/gillywulf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's impossible to go back to how things used to be. The challenge is finding how things will be from now on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get There

It seems blasphemous that the flat is exactly as they left it. On the coffee table is a small paperback book that Sam had started reading, only at Lara's irritated request. There is a plate and empty glass on the kitchen counter beside the sink and even one of Lara's own journals was slammed shut on the kitchen table. It's all evidence of lives that no longer existed.

Lives that _couldn’t_ exist.  
  
Lara stands in the doorway, keys still held aloft as her eyes roamed the familiar space. Taking a step inside was scary, but she managed, hauling her small dufflebag in with little to no effort. She set her bag carefully down on the floor to make as little sound as possible. It had become a habit after Yamatai to not make noise. She still felt hunted and sound would only give her away.  
  
“...I mean, it's kind of not okay that I had to ask him three times right? It's one thing if I'd blown up without asking or only asking once, but it was three times! He should have known better or expected it. I don't know what else to tell him!" Sam babbles relentlessly as she drops her own bag heavily inside the door. Her way of coping was the exact opposite of Lara's.

Silence became a deadly threat. Lara didn't mind as much as she thought she would. She understands. Plus it reminds her that her own fears became baseless once they were pulled onto the cargo ship. She watches Sam move about the flat, hands moving and straightening and resetting and unpacking. It would be amusing if it wasn't terrifying.

"Sam" The filmmaker stops mid word and mid motion. "Let's take a nap. Please" The request loosens her muscles and she actually manages a smile.

"Sure, sweetie" Lara interlocks their fingers and doesn't say another word as she leads her best friend and who-really-knew-right-now to her bedroom. The sheets were dusty but the company was warm.

 

~

 

Her eyes fly open as her body goes shock still. She can't hear anything above the loud inhale and exhale of air through her nose but she can't stop it. There has to be a Solurii. She wouldn't have woken up otherwise. Is her ax at her fingertips? Her fingers claw desperately at the surface beneath her and it takes her a few seconds to register that her fingers are clutching sheets. Sheets. Not blood soaked dirt. She exhales raggedly from her mouth and closes her eyes. She's at home, alone in her bed. In London. In England. In the Atlantic Ocean.

With a sigh, she sits up. Sleep will be impossible, now. The wood floor is cold against her toes but she ignores it in favor of her journey to the kitchen. The brief journey ends in the unsurprising sight of her roommate, her best friend, her biggest motivation to stay alive, the girl she might be in love with, sitting at the table. She was already pouring a new cup of tea.

"Hey" It's odd to hear her quiet now, but Lara pretends it's the most normal thing there is. If Sam is still up, she's already feeling badly and Lara doesn't need to add to her misery, not now, not ever. Sam slides the tea over and Lara takes it with an exhausted smile. Sitting there together is easy.

"So I think, um, maybe-" But talking about her feelings is less so. "-I was thinking maybe we should just share a bed now because that's when we've felt the best" she stammers out. Her eyes are fixed on her teacup, studying the way the low light from above the toaster plays off the porcelain.

"Yes. Please" Lara's head shoots up and Sam is biting her lip, her fingers tracing over the lip of her own cup.

"Really?" Sam nods. It's odd not to have some sort of banter with her.

"I never feel safe anymore unless you're in sight. I thought it would get better once we got home but..." She shakes her head and trails off. The end is obvious so Lara doesn't push her.

"Nor I, you" The sound of slowly sipped tea is the only sound for a solid ten minutes. The quiet grates on the archeologist's nerves and it makes her fingers itch, but she says nothing. She can't. Sam's hands are visibly shaking. "Can you promise me something?"

"Depends" Lara thins her lips but doesn't ask.

"I need you to stay alive, no matter how much you might want otherwise. Can you promise me that?" Sam's eyes find her's in the darkness and stay there. It's a little jarring to see them so intense for the first time since before Yamatai, but Lara doesn't waver.

"Only if you do. I know that's probably much less of a problem for you-"

"It isn't" Sam's intensity returns and they stare at each other far longer than Lara's heart can really take. "I promise" She says finally. She notices then that both of their cups are empty. "Bed?" she asks quietly. Same nods and dumps both their cups in the sink to save for morning. Lara tries to choke down the relief that floods through her when Sam takes her hand.

 

~

 

Lara's eyes are starting to swim but she needs to push through and finish her work; she'd promised the museum after all. Scowling, she realizes she's read the same sentence four times now and not gotten anything from it.

"Sweetie? Are you okay?" Sam calls out from the main room. That meant the end of any productivity, not that it wasn't already failing, and not that she wouldn't have put it down for Sam at the drop of a hat anyway.

"Yes. Is there something you wanted?" There always is. She pushes back her chair - silently as always - and crosses her arms in the doorway. Sam is cocooned on the sofa within layers and layers of blankets and her laptop is open on the cushion in front of her. It's adorable.

"I was gonna start a new show and I was wondering if you wanted to watch it with me. The protag is supposed to be super relatable" 'Super relatable' is code for something, but Lara doesn't have enough information to go on.

"What is it?" she asks, moving to crouch beside Sam for a better look at the screen. It's an animation, which is bizarre for Sam, but she doesn't say anything.

"'The legend of Korra'. I don't know, a lot of people are recommending it on the internet and I know it's not usually up my alley, but everyone is really pushing for it so I thought I'd give it a try" Sam explains a little bashfully. There's obviously something Sam is holding back, but she doesn't have the energy to fight her. She sighs.

"Sure, make some room" Somehow, she climbs in behind Sam so that her arms wrap loosely around the filmmaker's waist and her chin rests on her shoulders. It feels somewhat intimate, but again, she bites her tongue. She wants this. Sam turns her head just enough to see her.

"Ready?" Lara hums in assent and they're off to the races. She knows she's supposed to be watching, or at least paying attention, but she's too wrapped up in the feeling of Sam safe in her arms. She inhales deeply and tries to turn her strained attention back to the laptop.

 

~

 

"I stand by my statement that the industry should shy away from books. I mean yeah, it's like a prewritten script with a massive following, but it's so lazy! Also, not every book should be a movie. That 'Fault in our Stars' movie? Whose idea was _that_?" Lara smiles fondly and cuts at her chicken breast. Sam is having a bad day, she can tell. Her rambling wouldn't be so bad on a normal day, so she lets her get it out.

The sudden violent buzzing of her cell phone startles them both to silence. Sam backed herself against the kitchen counter and Lara shot her hand to her thigh, ready to drip her ax into someone skull. But the only thing that happened was the phone kept ringing. Hesitantly, she answers it.

"Hello?"

"Lara! What the hell am I seeing on the news? What is this about you and your crew finding a lost island?!" a voice shouts through the speaker. She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Alister" The name makes Sam relax as well.

"Why am I hearing this from the telly rather than from you or Sam?" he asks indignantly. Lara sighs again.

"We've only been home for a few days and neither of us are in exactly great condition-"

"That's bullocks. We're going out for drinks tonight to celebrate. Amanda and Jen have already promised they'd be there" Lara resists a third sigh.

"Al, I'm serious-"

"You're always serious. Come on, this is a massive achievement. Next thing you know you'll be finding Atlantis-"

"Did the news mention that everyone on our ship died but the four of us? Did it mention the cult that hunted us down every second of every day? Did it happen to mention the dangerous conditions of the island itself? We're not going out" She hangs up the phone with such force that she's sure its broken. Would it be such a loss? Sam is shaking against the counter top and slowly, like approaching a wounded animal, Lara touches her arm. Wide eyes snap up to meet hers.

"Lara..." Her heart breaks a little bit.

"Let's go to bed. We'll leave cleaning for the morning"

 

~

 

"We need food" Lara looks up from her book to see Sam standing in the doorway, one arm crossed over her stomach, the other up by her mouth so that she can chew nervously on her fingernail.

"Okay. I'll run down to the shops" Lara closes her book and searches the room for a jacket.

"That's not-" Lara stops and watches her friend. "I hate this. I used to look for any excuse to leave the flat and now I'm horrified at the prospect of going _shopping_ " Her voice gives away the fact that she's ready to cry.  Lara crosses the room and embraces her tightly. They hadn't come all this way to break down now.

"It's okay, you know. Everyone deals with things at their own pace and honestly, our whole situation is rather unprecedented, so it's not as if there's a roadmap for any of this" she whispers soothingly into her ear. "I'll go to the shops and you'll come when you're ready" She presses a swift kiss to Sam's cheek and heads to the kitchen for her jacket.

It's not until she's left their flat that the weight of what she'd done settled into her stomach. She'd _kissed_ her. On the cheek, but the message was still clear. The thought of going back in to talk about it is absolutely terrifying, so she leaves the building, trying her very best not to think of it at all.

Instead, she focuses on the pedestrians that she shares the street with. The man coming towards her has enough space in his coat for a machete, does he have one? That lady is looking at her oddly. Does she view Lara as a threat? Can-

Lara squeezes her eyes closed and shakes her head. These are bad, bad thoughts that she shouldn't be having. Her pace quickens and the shop comes into view. The shopping list is simple; breads, spreads, milk, tea, cereal, meat, spices.

Lara can already feel herself panicking so she bustles around as fast as possible, dumping things into the cart. She's not bothered about brands or varieties because that would take far too long. She quickly finds a checkout line and gets everything onto the belt. The cashier is almost finished scanning her food when someone starts speaking to her.

"Hey, you that Laura Croft woman from the telly?" The person behind her is just a teenage boy, but her nerves are set on edge and her fingers are itching.

"It's Lara" she corrects weakly.

"Shit, my parents won't stop going on about you. Can I get a photo? They'll never believe this" He's already pulling out his phone and her panic is rising up in to her throat.

"Your total is eighty pounds and fifty pence" She runs her card and signs before the teenager can snap photo. She rushes to gather her bags and be out the door, ignoring the receipt that's being waved after her. She can hear the disappointment in the teenager's voice and she thinks maliciously that he should get used to it.

It isn't until she rounds the corner that she always herself to collapse against the old brick. The short trip was exhausting. She crashes through their front door and Sam is immediately pulling her into an embrace. Lara can feel her shivering.

"Too long. Too long" she mumbles against Lara's collarbone.

"I'm here now"

 

~

 

Fingers are tracing her skin at the spot where her shirt has ridden up to expose her rebar wound. It's dark out still and this time there's only a fraction of of a second that the thought 'kill them' is considered. An improvement.

"I still can't believe it you know. The things that happened to me. The things you did to save me. It all seems so unreal" Sam murmurs into skin. Lara covers Sam's hand with her own.

"Because it is unbelievable" Sam bites her lip and it shouldn't be cute, not when her best friend is feeling the way she is.

"Do you think I'll ever get over it?"

"Not really, no" The filmmaker's eyes rise to meet hers, alarmed. "I think we'll just learn to live with it. I know I won't get over it"

"Does that scare you?" Lara nods. "Me too" They lapse into silence again, nimble fingers resuming their movements across numb skin. Sam tucks her head back under Lara's chin.

"Thank you for putting up with me"

"It's my privilege"

 

~

 

It's not a good idea, she knows. Especially not after their early morning conversation a few nights ago. But Lara still wants to give it a try.

"Sam?"

"And I wasn't- yeah?"

"Would you want to go somewhere today? Maybe the park? Or anywhere else, it doesn't have to be the park" Lara asks hesitantly. She doesn't want to rush Sam into anything, not at all, but staying inside the flat isn't helping, no matter what she might argue. Sam tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, giving away how nervous she is. "Nevermind, it was dumb-"

"No, you're right. I- _we_ should get out for a little bit. The park is fine" Her eyes dart back and forth between the floor and Lara's eyes. She's sincere.

"Brilliant. Have you got a coat?" Five minutes later, they're edging out of the building, clutching one anothers hands like lifelines. Lara's sure that if she were to look down, her hand would be white from the force.

Sam is shaking the the whole walk there, so Lara whispers softly to her. Most of it is just calming assurances that she's still there, but she makes sure to tell her how well she's doing. The moment they reach the grounds, Sam collapses onto a bench. Lara puts up no fuss as she's dragged down beside her.

"I hope you know how great you're doing" she says. Sam squeezes her eyes closed and shakes her head.

"I don't feel like it" There's more there than just this outing and frankly, that scares Lara more than her own mind.

"You promised" Sam's eyes open and lock on to hers.

"You'd have to take me to an amusement park to get me to break that" Lara's chest tightens.

 

~

 

This time when the phone rings, their first thought isn't of bombs and explosives. Still, Lara answers with a palpable nervousness.

"Hello, is this Lara Croft?" She frowns.

"Yes. What do you want?"

"I am preparing an expedition that I think you'd-" Hilarious. There was no way she is up for that.

"No" He pauses, clearly not expecting that response.

"But you haven't even heard where-"

"I don't care, goodbye" She hangs up and slides the phone to the center to the table. Surprisingly enough, Sam was smiling at her. "What?"

"It sounded like you. That's all" she shrugs. "I liked hearing it" Lara stares at her, then smiles herself. She likes it too.

 

~

 

The museum insisted that her note clarifications be done in person and she hates every second of the journey there. By the time she starts climbing the decorative stairs to the main entrance, she's envisioned the deaths of countless people and her legs are shaking. She's not even sure how she's still standing.

In the same breath, it feels like a victory. No one was hurt or creeped out by her. It was okay. However, that victory all but disappears the moment she steps into the main foyer. There are people everywhere, some are even small screaming children, running around while their parents purchase tickets.

Lara backs herself into the wall. Her heart is pounding in her ears as she looks around for exits. She can just go back out the way she came, but she'd have to pass the children again.

She notices a guard glancing from her to the inside of his guard booth every few seconds. Is he going to arrest her? Kill her? Hurt Sam? He starts coming over and she grins then pen in her pocket, ready to stab the moment he's in range. He stops a few feet away and smiles warmly at her.

"Are you miss Croft?" he asks. She nods and he grins wider. "Brilliant. If you follow me, I'll take you to the back offices. They warned me that you might be a bit lost" His innocence and sincerity takes a moment to register because it's the last thing she expects.

She nods minutely and he leads her exactly where he said he would. The museum administrators are delighted to see her and immediately start asking questions about her work. She breathes.

 

~

 

Lara could count on one hand the number of times since they'd come home that she'd woken up without hysteria in her throat. Every time it happened, it felt like she hadn't taken a breath in weeks and then suddenly it was easy. Sam's close proximity certainly helped.

Lara perches her chin on her hand and peers down at the other woman. She's beautiful and calm in her sleep, something the archeologist hasn't seen since before Yamatai. One of her hands curls loosely beside her face and the other is resting on Lara's stomach.

Lara wonders if it's to feel her there, to know she's not alone and vulnerable. She brushes a strand of soft black hair from Sam's face and smiles when the filmmaker snuffles before curling closer into Lara.

Yes, she understands.

 

~

 

The show's music ends as the credits start and the two stare at the screen open mouthed.

"That was gay, right? I'm not seeing things? That couldn't have been gayer if they went at it right there" Sam runs a hand through her hair and leans further into Lara who is still processing what she'd seen.

"No, that was definitely meant to imply a relationship. Wow. I didn't think they'd do it" She wraps an arm around Sam's waist to keep her from sliding off the sofa.

"It's good though. Because now little kids who watched the show will grow up knowing that its totally normal to fall in love with your best friend" Lara frowns at Sam's wording. Did she mean that how she _thought_ she meant it?

"The best we had growing up was Xena, and implication is all well and good, but it's nice to see it obvious" she says off-handedly. She feels Sam go still against her and suddenly she's turning to face Lara, a weird look on her face.

"I mean, I have no doubt that a lot of people would interpret hand holding and going on a private vacation as platonic. Do you think they should have said it with words?" Their faces are closer than they've consciously ever been and Lara sees Sam's eyes flicker down to her lips every few seconds. Her lips suddenly feel sensitive and full and Sam's look the same. They look like the kind of lips that she could never get tired of kissing.

"Talking's good. Talking's great. But Korra isn't much of a talker, that's Asami's thing. Korra prefers action. She would have kissed her" She speaks quietly, as any noise above a certain volume would shatter whatever was happening. Sam's eyes tighten even further.

"Yeah, kissing does say a lot" Lara has a fraction of a second warning before Sam is in her personal space and their sensitive lips are touching in a dizzying kiss. She reaches up to cup Sam's face, steadying them. Suddenly there's clicking teeth and tongues and it's overwhelming. Being in love with Sam had come easy, she had been since before Yamatai, but this is something else, this is being together and it's terrifying her.

But she troops on, because there's really nothing else in the world she wants, not to feel normal again, not to decipher her father's work, not to be buried in good archeology for the rest of her life. No, all she wants is Sam. By the time they break for air, Sam's hand is somewhere up Lara's shirt and their bodies are perfectly aligned.

"I guess we should do the words part now, huh-"

"I love you" Lara interrupts breathlessly. "I have for years" Sam's brown eyes are wide and she's so beautiful when she grins and pushes her face into Lara's neck.

"God, you are a nerd. I love you too, sweetie. Also for years" Lara can feel the grin against her skin and doesn't fight her own first easy smile. It's dazzling and immense but it's so _good_.

"We always do this" she laughs, squeezing Sam closer.

"Yeah, but we always get there in the end" Lara laughs again because yes, it's true. They took too long to be friends, to move in together, to rescue each other, to get _here_ , but being a little late never really took away from the arrival.

"And we always will"


End file.
